The TeachingBooks Blog
When I start a book I know what it’s going to be about, but I almost never know the best way to tell the story. With Jet Plane: How It Works (David Macaulay Studio, 2012), I started with elephants. I was thinking about how remarkable it is that heavy things can fly.?
Working with Nic Bishop on a “Scientists in the Field” book always entails thrilling moments. Together, with the men and women whose work we chronicle, we’ve handled wild tarantulas in French Guiana, walked among 18,000 slithering snakes in Canada, and traveled on Bactrian camels in Mongolia in search of snow leopards.?
Daydreaming becomes a strong muscle if you exercise it often enough. By the time I was ten, I could lasso a daydream and ride the wind. Who wouldn’t want to do that?
I like to say that I began writing before I knew how to write. By that I mean that I made up stories, acting them out with my dolls and stuffed animals, turning them into plays to perform with my neighborhood friends, or dictating them to my father, who would then type them out on the manual typewriter his father gave him when he was a young man. Writing, in my head and on paper, was my way of making sense of the world and my place in it.
The whole thing started in 2008, when I was working as Congressman John Lewis’s press secretary during his primary campaign.
When I was a kid I was an explorer and a researcher. At the public library I discovered books that opened doors to hidden worlds and strange mysteries. One book led to another, and another, and on it went.
I do not consider myself a poet. I do read plenty of poetry but am trained in prose. After all, I started my writing life as a journalist, on the police beat. Very little time was devoted to crafting just the right phrase; mostly I was panicking to make deadline.
I remember it clearly—the day the inspiration for Papa’s Mechanical Fish (Farrar, 2013) fell in my lap. I was sitting cross-legged on the basement floor of the Old Lighthouse Museum in Michigan City, Indiana, rummaging through a box of photographs when a crumbling, decades-old booklet slipped out from a manila folder.
Each month we share information about special, free, and enjoyable opportunities for you that we feel support the mission of TeachingBooks. This month, we hope you enjoy learning about the following opportunities (in order of deadline):
Yes, it’s true. I have always loved concept books. ABCs, one-two-threes, reds yellows blues, you name a concept book – chances are, I loved it.
I was describing my research and note-taking process during a recent school visit, when a boy raised his hand and said, “Sounds like you do homework for a living.”
Each month we learn of special, free, and enjoyable opportunities for you that we feel support the mission of TeachingBooks. This month, we hope you enjoy learning about the following opportunities (in order of deadline) ...
I love doing research when I’m working on a novel, and not just because it’s a great way to procrastinate. Research can be as vital to a work of fiction as it is to nonfiction. It fleshes out your backstory. It helps you make serendipitous connections. It lets you know–truly know–your characters and setting.
Each month we learn of special, free, and enjoyable opportunities for you that we feel support the mission of TeachingBooks. This month, we hope you enjoy learning about the following opportunities (in order of deadline) ...
